Comment on my theory... (involves djing)

Check it pablo,

I've been noticing this more and more, and I don't think it's a fad..

Kids that were never in the house scene, current age 5-23ish use to be for the most part all hip hop and MTV..

These kids were force feed the lasted crap by TRL.. We all expected them to pick up where we left off in the edm scene, but clearly it's not happening and won't happen.

MTV has faded away, it's no longer playing music and does not influence musical choices at all. Now kids have 92453485 songs in itunes and a pocket full of thousands of types of music genres.

Here is my theory of why it's happening.

Guitar hero.

Kids are buying guitars at an alarming rate. I bet cdjs are no longer selling as well but guitars have seen a huge up tick. Ten year olds know who Slash is now, before that game, they had no fricking idea! Remember Slash came on the scene 20 years ago, 10 years before most of these kids were born!

That game is going to produce some killer bands in the next few years.. These kids are getting inspired by rock.. I see kids with ACDC shirts on now!

It's only a theory, but I truly think that game is going to get rock back to where it once was in a few years when they kids grow up..

They're picking up Guitar Hero, not guitars themselves.

Guitar Hero versus playing a real guitar is like comparing driving a Ford Focus to driving an F1 racer. Same idea, but two different skill levels are needed. See "Guitar Queer-o".

I've seen a lot of kids pick up Guitar Hero, but I haven't seen a lot of them take the next step to picking up a used Strat and a beat up Marshall amp to try out the real thing.

And the AC/DC shirts, etc? Fashion. Most of these kids would still probably run for the hills if they listened to AC/DC.

If a year from now I see legions of 12 year olds at Guitar Center splurging on the Ibanez starter kit or whatever, then I'll be convinced.

As far as musical interests, I saw a lot of kids try to pick up DJing, then it faded a bit. There's been a bit of an uptick though with Serato being fairly cheap. Hell, the software itself is free. And it'll run on a cheap laptop.

Kids picking up musical instruments tends to remain consistent, with fads every so often.

My own interests aside, the best instrument for any kid to learn is piano/keyboards. From there everything else becomes easier.

My friends kids are all getting real guitars...

You know how kids are. A year from now that Ibanez will be on eBay. The kids still doing it will be the ones who probably have a knack for music.

Oh, and they'll be pretty sore when they don't sound like Slash in six weeks. Getting to Slash's level takes years, even decades. Playing guitar like he does, well, it's more than the guitar. It's the guitar, the strings, the pedals, and the guy holding it. I don't know any kid who's gonna hang out at GC all day comparing GBS strings to Brand X, and spending his hoarded lunch money on a set of BOSS pedals or a Rockman fuzzbox.

everything is an endless cycle, you have a point about MTV but as long people have the desire to express themselves with some sort of tool weather it be a piano, guitar, drums, dj equipment, we should welcome it because these are the people that will take us & our scene into the future. Some may go into more of the urban side, some may go rock, some edm, whatever it maybe it is a wonderful thing, in the end they all have some sort of crossover. All exposure is good.

Am I the only one who thinks that it's awesome that these kids are interacting with loops rather than passively listening to the music? Kids who are first exposed to playing music with Guitar Hero are just about ready for Ableton Live. It's just a different controller (they get to pick) and a different 'game'.

Step in the right direction, certainly. I don't decry Guitar Hero at all, it's a whole lotta fun. I just know how kids are.

DJ style controller for Guitar Hero:

guitarheroturn.jpg (21.25 KiB) Viewed 4897 times

Am I the only one who thinks that it's awesome that these kids are interacting with loops rather than passively listening to the music? Kids who are first exposed to playing music with Guitar Hero are just about ready for Ableton Live. It's just a different controller (they get to pick) and a different 'game'.

+1

Technologic

With digital audio still exploding and becoming faster and cheaper as well as it integrating with toys and video games is amazing. Music, and the way its performed and composed in 10 or 20 years could be insane.